96.5 F
San Fernando
Friday, Mar 29, 2024

Outages in Flames

Southern California Edison earlier this month cut off electricity to more than 21,000 customers in the northern San Fernando Valley to prevent further damage from the Saddleridge Fire, which burned more than 8,800 acres, damaged dozens of buildings and was tied to two deaths. The utility refers to such service outages as “public safety power shutoffs,” or PSPS, and employs them at times when potentially dangerous weather events, like fires, could be exacerbated by electrical currents running along transmission lines and substations. Edison provides electricity to 15 million people in 180 cities in 15 counties throughout Southern and Central California through a grid of 12,000 miles of high-voltage transmission lines and 91,000 miles of distribution lines. As the Saddleridge Fire blazed outward from its inception point near the 210 freeway in Sylmar, Edison cut power for customers in neighboring communities including Chatsworth, San Fernando, Sunland and Tujunga. The company was closely monitoring the fire’s movement, ready to broaden its PSPS as far as Ventura County, Santa Clarita and even Lancaster for as many as 233,000 customers if necessary. While the power shutoffs from the Saddleridge Fire have all been lifted, the utility will continue to use the risk reduction technique in the face of future fires, floods and other natural disasters throughout the state. The Edison website indicates there are currently 0 customers in Southern California with their power cut due to PSPS, but more than 162,000 customers are under consideration for shutoffs. The cause of the Saddleridge Fire is under investigation, according to the Los Angeles Fire Department. Business impact The fire department has tallied 88 damaged buildings and 19 that were destroyed in the Saddleridge Fire. Due to geographic factors, nearly all affected properties were residential. But the LAFD website confirmed damage to at least one commercial structure. The department’s Public Safety Officer Brian Humphrey told the Business Journal property damage data from the fire hasn’t been compiled into a legible format yet and he could not provide detail about what or where the damaged commercial building is. There was no damage reported to businesses or industrial complexes in Granada Hills or Porter Ranch, though mixed-use shopping center The Vineyards at Porter Ranch had to close some stores, including a Whole Foods, Peet’s Coffee, Nordstrom’s and Vineyards Nail Spa, until the fire was under control. Several competing commercial centers nearby, including Porter Ranch Town Center, which has a Walmart, a Starbucks, an Island’s and a Ralphs market, also closed temporarily. Jheri Heetland, executive director of the Chatsworth/Porter Ranch Chamber of Commerce, said businesses in the area were mostly affected by customers’ limited access to stores and offices. “It’s tough — all the freeways are closed and the smoke is horrendous,” Heetland told the Business Journal Oct. 11 as the fire blazed out of control. “There are a lot of road blockages. … The smoke is unbearable.” While the Valley business community suffered little lasting damage from the Saddleridge Fire, electricity cuts represent a real threat for some businesses. Bakeries and restaurants, for example, rely on 24-hour refrigeration and oven systems for preparation work and food storage. If those services are cut off, valuable inventory is lost. This represents a potentially crippling financial loss for businesses whose margins are already slim. Biopharmaceutical companies, too, could see sensitive research samples corrupted if their cold storage is interrupted. And computer-based businesses like software engineers or materials testing laboratories could lose progress on costly, time consuming projects. ‘Surgical’ approach According to Edison Public Information Officer David Song, the utility tries to account for such risks when planning PSPS. “We don’t make these decisions (to cut power) in a vacuum,” he said. In dangerous weather events, Edison communicates closely with business accounts and encourages smaller businesses to practice emergency preparedness, whether that means buying generators or finding other ways to protect inventory or projects. “A lot of our larger business clients have direct contacts with our account executives. They can contact them round-the-clock pretty much,” Song said. “Forty-eight hours out from a weather event, we’re going to start communicating with our customers. … We try to communicate in real time, but obviously these are dynamic weather events and things do change rather quickly.” Ultimately, he said, Edison strives to cut power for as few customers as possible without ever threatening public safety. “Our goal is to make the process as surgical as possible,” he said. “We compartmentalize our circuits into smaller pieces. A circuit can have anywhere from a few hundred to a few thousand customers, so it’s not about turning off entire circuits, (but parts) of circuits.” To do that effectively, Edison employs staff meteorologists and consults with the National Weather Service to forecast weather patterns and measure humidity, wind speed and other factors. If a circuit lies in a red flag zone for fires, the company will deploy a field team to monitor the site in person. It also works closely with the LAFD, county responders and the utility authority California Independent System Operator to stay appraised of a weather event’s activity. Edison’s surgical strategy is in stark contrast with the approach Pacific Gas & Electric took to combat simultaneous fires in northern California earlier this month. PG&E preemptively cut electricity to more than 700,000 homes and businesses between California’s northern border and Silicon Valley, fearing the potentially rapid spread of multiple fires throughout the region. Things quickly went wrong — the company’s communications and computer systems failed, and its website crashed from the influx of customers wondering if their service would be cut. Most of those affected were without power for two days, and some for three. “We never consider broad stroke approaches to deenergizing our lines,” said Song. “Every year, it’s about — ‘how do we get more reliable? How do we maintain service?’”

Featured Articles

Related Articles